CIC’s autonomous projects of collective initiative #3: CASX

The Cooperativa d’Autofinançament Social en Xarxa(CASX) – which means co-operative of social and network self-financing – is a savings, donations and project funding cooperative, which was set up with the purpose of providing funding for projects that are aligned with the principles of the CIC and the integral revolution, as “the deposits made to CASX are used to finance self-managed individual or collective projects aiming at the common good” (CIC). To this end, since 2013 CASX has provided 59329 euros of funding to 18 projects.

The CASX logo

Launched in 2012 as an “autonomous project of collective initiative” of the CIC, CASX has been operating as a co-op since 2013, using the legal form of Xarxa d’Autogestio Social SCCL, which is one of the “legal tools” the CIC offers to its member-projects. Presently, CASX has 155 members, of which many represent other cooperatives and collectivities. The membership fee for individual projects is 15 euros and 51 euros for collective projects. Taking into account the activist character of the project as well as the fact that deposits to CASX are interest-free, it is truly remarkable that the total amount of deposits made in the last four years exceeds 250 thousand euros (for a more detailed analysis, see graph below).

CASX deposits (Source: CASX presentation at the permanent assembly of the CIC, 2015)

The members of CASX make decisions based on consensus through its assembly, which takes place once a month at AureaSocial. In case that consensus is not possible among co-op members as to whether a project should be funded or not, “the ones that agree to go on with the funding can do so individually” by using their personal CASX deposits in a manner akin to crowd-funding (CIC). As fas as its daily operation is concerned, CASX relies on two CIC members, who receive a basic income of 70 “monetary units” (which, in their case, amount to 60 euros and 10 ecos) per month.

CASX has suspended temporarily its operation since the beginning of the year in order to re-engineer its organization around a deposits and funding model based exclusively on ecos, which is slated to roll out when CASX resumes its operation in about two months. Alongside with the implementation of this business model, one of CASX’s goals for the future is the decentralization of its model through its local reproduction “so that every neighborhood, town or city can start generating their own CASX assembly, redirecting the resources of their local members to local projects” (CIC).

WRITTEN BY

George Dafermos

George Dafermos is a researcher of technology policy and management, a member of commons|lab and a copyleft activist affiliated with the P2P Foundation. He holds a PhD from Delft University of Technology and is an internationally recognised expert on issues related to the governance of the commons, peer production and open/user innovation.